


Burden of Exile

by thepointoftheneedle



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Charles Smith FBI, Crime AU, F/M, Fluff, Hiram Lodge is a mobster, Investigative Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Sasquatch, Sheriff FP Jones II, Smut, choni, varchie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27759916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: Betty wants to know why folks dedicate themselves to seeking the Sasquatch.  Jughead has a conspiracy theory about that.  What happens when they team up to pursue their investigations?  Including OMG there's only one tent, Archie as Elmo and a take down of a mob boss.A cracking branch behind her made her twist abruptly.  There, where the trees thinned, stood…stood something. She scrambled to her feet, preparing to run, barely registering the pack, falling from her lap and tumbling, tumbling over the escarpment.  The thing didn’t move, just stood there, exactly unlike a human, with an uncanny stooped posture, its jaw jutting forward, watching her from under lowered brows.  It was covered in a heavy pelt, mostly dark but redder over its head and neck.  The fur covered its throat and cheeks but around its eyes and nose, skin was visible almost like the mask of a great ape.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 105
Kudos: 69
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	1. Among The Thick Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stonerbughead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonerbughead/gifts).



> The title and chapter headings are from a song by The Mountain Goats called The Wooded Hills Along The Black Sea.  
> Here's a little of the lyric:
> 
> Cause no trouble  
> Keep to our own kind  
> Known to exist  
> Hard to find  
> Neck deep in our passions  
> Serve who we serve  
> Enshrouded in moonlight  
> Bucking the curve  
> Under the radar  
> Just out of reach  
> Among the thick woods

Her fingers were numb inside the expensive ski gloves she’d bought especially for the trip. She’d anticipated that she’d have to spend time in the wilderness with these folks but not how much time. Discomfort, danger, desperate tedium, nothing dulled their resolve or enthusiasm. It was clearly part of the reason that the illogicality, some would say the craziness, of their beliefs did not diminish the fervour with which they adhered to them. Like Mr Weatherbee here, Waldo. He’d been a man of some standing in his community, a high school principal. Now he was reduced to this, shivering in an adapted bird hide, watching the forests with a feverish, unbalanced intensity that made her regard him with both pity and a hint of trepidation. “It’s a good night. I can sense it. Clear ... still. He’ll be coming through here, just you wait. And then you’ll write it up and they’ll know. They’ll all know.”

She smiled reassuringly, not wanting to antagonise him by expressing her absolute conviction that he was suffering from a profound and intractable delusion. She pulled the collar of her coat up around her ears and huddled in the corner of the hide. She reflected that she could have had her pick of research projects, disinhibition amongst Spring Breakers in Florida, the depressogenic effects of super wealth, a semantic differential approach to wine consumption analysis in Tuscany. But no, she’d turned down all of those opportunities in order to freeze to death chasing hominid cryptids across North America. Actually, if anyone was crazy it was probably her, rather than poor deluded Waldo. She had her reasons, of course. She was using her expensive education in psychology to try to understand, perhaps even make peace with, her past. When she was still a teenager, her mother and sister had abandoned her and joined a cult. There were moments when she might have followed them. She had seen things, inexplicable, chilling things, that haunted her still. Once she had seen, no, she had imagined that she had seen, her baby niece and nephew tossed into a bonfire, but, instead of falling into a horrifying inferno, they had floated up to the safety of their mother’s loving arms. She had no explanation for what she had experienced; she couldn’t reconcile it with her rational, scientific view of the universe and it unsettled her more than she could express. She needed to give an account of the mechanism by which rational people like her mother and her sister, most especially like herself, could convince themselves that a lie was the truth, that they should steer their life by these radically displaced pole stars even as they crashed against the rocks of cold hard fact. So here she was, trying to crawl inside Waldo’s fractured mind in order to come to terms with what had occurred in her own life.

She must have closed her eyes for a second because when she opened them the door was being nudged open. Her terrified breath caught in her throat. She’d clearly been spending too much time with people who wanted to believe because she almost expected a shambling figure with a shaggy red pelt to lumber in straight from the Patterson Gimlin film. She sighed in relief when it was simply another guy, a fellow Sasquatch tracker she assumed by the friendly way he greeted Waldo. “No sign?” he queried, before spotting her and grinning while raising his eyebrows conspiratorially. As he stepped forward into the tiny circle of light cast by the dim lantern, she could see the amusement in his eyes, he was youngish, tall and slim, not the standard kooky looking Sasquatch hunter. His hair, flopping into his eyes, from under a grey woollen hat, was dark and wavy. The good humoured eyes a surprising blue.

Waldo replied, grabbing a steel pan, “Not yet but I’m going to go and knock the trees. That’ll bring him closer.”

“Cool, cool. And who’s this? A new recruit?” He smiled at her and she found herself blushing like the last wallflower at the prom being asked for a dance.

“Betty Cooper. I’m an academic, writing a paper about the search for the Bigfoot,” she said, trying to exude self assured professionalism.

“Nice to meet you Miss Cooper. I’m Jughead, Jughead Jones,” he said, pulling off a glove to offer a handshake. His hand was remarkably hot. Her chilled fingers seemed to take on a life of their own, reluctant to release him as she reciprocated.

“Doctor, it’s Doctor Cooper actually.”

“Your hand’s freezing. I’m heading back to town, need a ride?”

While her dedication to science might normally have forced her to endure the frigid shack for as long as Waldo intended to stay, she feared that her cognitive processes were already impaired by the cold. Certainly she seemed to be having some difficulty replying to Mr Jones’ friendly offer. “Well, thanks, I…yes…if that’s…Is that ok with you Waldo?”

Waldo glanced at her. “But you’ll miss him. He’s sure to be along soon.”

“I trust you to get the photograph, Waldo. And like I said, if you can get a hair sample I can get the Archaeo-DNA Lab to process it alongside their Neanderthal sample. You’ve totally got this.”  
Waldo shrugged as an indication of his evaluation of her commitment and took off to hit trees with a pan as she gathered up her recorder and notebook. Once she was ready she looked towards Jones expectantly.

“I’m parked on the logging road. You got a torch?” She nodded and rummaged in her backpack for the rubber torch that she’d bought in Oregon, selected more as a weapon than a light source, in case any of the weirdos got out of hand. As he led them into the forest it occurred to her that she was heading off into the unknown with a total stranger. She imagined the voice over on a true crime documentary. “Betty Cooper accepted a ride from a stranger. He led her to the tree line and she was never seen again.” 

For a moment she considered returning to the shack but then he spoke, “So, are you a true believer like Waldo there, or what?”

“Not really. I’m a psychologist researching the interplay between objective data, cultural expectation and community in belief formation.” 

He raised an eyebrow enquiringly, “So you’re studying Waldo not the Sasquatch?”

“Yeah, I guess so. What about you? Why are you out here in the cold and dark?”

“Oh I’m a hack, freelance. Lots of weird sightings around here. I think there’s a story but I’m not sure yet exactly what kind.” They were among the trees now and she was sticking close to Jones. If she lost him she’d have no idea how to get out of the woods. She was always surprised by the forests, expecting quiet. In the darkness her ears were so sensitive that the noises were cacophonous. There were strange hoots, twigs cracking around them, the wind through the branches, the crunch of icy leaves underfoot. She jumped as a loud crash echoed through the trees. “It’s Waldo, tree knocking,’ he explained as he noticed her startle. Then another loud crash sounded from the opposite direction. Now he looked nervous too. “Probably a deer… probably. Come on let’s get out of here.’ They hurried on through the trees, the torchlight finally picking out a motorcycle by the roadside.

“I thought you had a car,” she blurted, her voice sounding embarrassingly high and frightened.

“You assumed. If you think the bike’s more dangerous than staying out here with whatever is crashing about in the undergrowth then don’t feel obliged. Personally I’m out of here,” he said, swinging a long leg over the saddle and offering her a helmet. There was another crash from among the trees and she hurriedly put it on and clambered onto the saddle behind him, gripping his waist. He kicked the bike into life and roared off down the rough logging road, both much too fast and not fast enough. She clung on to him, her feelings torn between enjoyment of his warm body under her hands and a sense that her life had abruptly become one of those Hallmark movies where the career woman comes to some bizarre realisation that her life is meaningless and impoverished without the attentions of some damaged guy with a boat or a widower with a dog or, in this case, a bad boy with a motorcycle. The fact was that she had resisted romantic attachments, unwilling to give up her independence for a man. She’d seen her sister’s life laid waste by the loss of her boyfriend. Her father’s abandonment had led to her mother’s spiralling dependency on a charismatic cult leader. Love didn’t add anything to the lives of the Cooper women and she planned to stay well away. He was warm though, his body solid and reassuring in front of her. He smelled good too, woodsmoke and spruce, wholesome. And while she wasn’t interested in acquiring the baggage of a relationship, a casual hookup in a town she planned to leave within the week might not be unwelcome. She shuffled a little closer, moved her hands a little lower, relaxed into him a little more softly. That second of inattention nearly cost her dearly as he slammed on the brake and skidded skitteringly to a halt across the road. She looked around wildly, clutching onto him, as he struggled to hold them upright. “There!” he cried, ripping off his glove and reaching into a pocket. She realised her was going for his phone and she followed suit even though she couldn’t see exactly what had caused their sudden halt. Then a movement caught her eye. A hundred yards ahead a large shape was moving along the treeline away from them with a loping gait. He’d found his phone and was holding it up even as he muttered, “Too fucking dark,” he wrangled the bike around to try to capture the shape in the beam of the headlight and, as he did so, it turned, its eyes gleaming in the reflected light, looking back at them over its shoulder.

“Is it a man?” she hissed. 

“No idea, pretty hairy if it is. Hairy and naked. In the woods. In the snow…at night. Let’s hope it goes past Waldo, he’s got the night sight on his camera.” He stopped the recording on his phone impatiently. “This is going to be yet another blurry, useless piece of footage.” The figure disappeared into the forest, its fur catching the light of the headlamp before it became invisible. Betty began to shiver, shock combining with cold to make her whole body vibrate. “Hey, come on, you’re ok. Let’s get into town. We’ll get you a hot drink,” he said, concern in those intriguing blue eyes.

Thirty minutes later her shaking had begun to subside. They were in a booth at an all night diner where she was sipping a hot chocolate which, with a subtle nod, the proprietor had spiked with a slug of brandy when Jones had said “She had a shock Pop. Can you give that a bit of a backbone? Le Bonne Nuit can oblige can’t it?” 

In good light she could see that he was even more attractive than she had first thought. He had fine features, classically handsome. His dark, wavy hair was glossy and somehow heavy where it fell from the confines of the grey hat. His eyes were blue, intelligent, perhaps a little guarded. She liked the mobility of his features, the way he raised an eyebrow sardonically or curled a lip to show distaste. She liked how sometimes the cynical facade broke into genuine, unself-conscious laughter. Shit, she just liked him, all of him.

He was working his way through two burgers, an order of fries and another of onion rings and numerous cups of black coffee as they chatted about his most recent articles for the Washington Post and the New York Times. She explained that she was an assistant professor at Brown, that the paper she was writing was her bid for tenure. Finally he pushed away his plate, wiping his lips with a napkin, a gesture that, embarrassingly, she found it impossible not to watch.

“Full now?” she asked, amused by his capacity for junk food.

“Never. Monsters give me such an appetite. Sure you don’t want something? Grilled cheese? Turkey sandwich? Pie, come on, they have great pie and sugar’s good for shock.”

“You order and I’ll have some,” she smiled. 

He raised an eyebrow, “I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, Cooper. I’m not normally a sharer. Pop, apple pie over here please. Don’t forget the cheddar.” She stared at him, horrified. “Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Doc. You know the old saying ‘apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze.’”

“You just made that up,” she replied, suspicious, wondering if he was flirting but not seeing any evidence. He hadn’t touched her since he helped her off the bike in the parking lot. Disappointingly.

“I did not,” he muttered as Pop appeared with the pie, accompanied by cheese and set it down between them with two forks. It was actually a surprisingly good combination. He smirked as she ate more than her fair share before pushing away the plate. He finished the rest, barely pausing to chew.

“Right Jones, explain yourself. Are you a monster hunter or a debunker? What’s your angle?” she demanded, feeling that she knew him a little better now that they’d shared dessert.

There was a slightly hectic gleam in his eye as he replied. “I think of myself as one of the last true sceptics. I have no skin in the game. I’m sceptical when Waldo tells me that the truth is out there but then I’m pretty sceptical about the powers that be saying there’s nothing to see. I want to get the evidence myself before I make a call. I find that normally in these cases you just have to follow the money. Most of the Bigfoot shooters have a YouTube channel and merch. They’re monetizing the shit out of our hairy friend. Waldo’s different. He’s lost on the deal. You know he used to be the principal of the high school here, right?”

“Yeah. He saw the Bigfoot and told people, went to the newspapers. The school board told him to recant and, when he wouldn’t, he got fired. His friends turned against him, his pastor told him to stay away from church if he was going to keep telling wild stories. He’s living off his savings, might lose his home. It’s pretty sad.”

“So he won’t deny what he says he saw even though he gains squat from persisting. It’s persuasive. And then there’s the spotted owl.”

“I’m sorry?” She was puzzled by the non sequitur.

“So the spotted owl was added to the endangered species register in 1990. Protecting the habitat was pretty bad for business. There was a catastrophic decline in the logging industry in the Pacific North West. Maybe if you own a logging company, or even if you just work for one, you might not want some endangered species to be discovered and destroy your industry. Or maybe it’s way more complicated than that.”

“And what the hell did we just see out there? It didn’t look human.”

“No clue. I’m going back out tomorrow though. I’m going to stay out there as long as it takes, see what I can find. Maybe I’ll be able to pull off the monster suit and it’ll be the creepy owner of the old fairground or something.” She smiled at the Scooby reference.

“Can I come?” She had no idea that she was going to say it until the words were already out. She flushed pink. Maybe he’d think she was coming on to him, trying to spend the night alone with him in the wilderness. Maybe she was.

“Sure, I guess so.” He looked a little surprised, but not displeased, by the request. “You need gear though. I’m not taking you out there to freeze to death. There’s a camping store out on the road to Fox Forest. I can take you out there tomorrow, get you all set.” She nodded her agreement. “Ok, where are you bedding down tonight? Five Seasons?” 

“No, I’m in a B&B. Thistle House.”

He whistled softly under his breath. “You are living dangerously. I’m pretty sure Cheryl Bossom is more dangerous than the hairy dude.” She’d told him she had barely seen the scary redhead. Her wife had shown her the room and given her directions to Waldo’s place when she arrived and had been nothing but hospitable and friendly. “Yeah, the B&B is Toni’s hobby project. Cheryl is Blossom Logging and Lumber. We spent the evening in her backyard, so to speak. She’s a very sharp businesswoman in a pretty male dominated industry so I guess she’s developed this ‘take no shit’ attitude.”

He offered her a ride back and she found she was looking forward to the excuse to touch him again. She murmured something about her car being at Waldo’s but he brushed away that concern. “It’ll be fine til tomorrow and you’ve had one of Pop’s special hot chocolates. You don’t want the Sheriff on your case. He’s pretty severe on drunk drivers. Ironically.” She didn’t understand the joke but Pop overheard it and chuckled.

She felt disappointed that he didn’t climb off the bike outside Thistle House and invite himself in for a nightcap. She’d need to be careful not to get attached to Jones. He had a way about him that seemed to engage her in ways she hadn’t anticipated. She needed to watch herself, remember how that had gone for Polly, for her mother. Besides she had decided that she was bad at relationships. She seemed to get eaten up by them, taken over so that she didn’t have a sense of herself. When she was seeing Josh she’d gone to clubs at night even though she hated the noise and the chaos and the overpriced sickly drinks. With Adam, they’d gone sailing each weekend, despite her seasickness. Alone she could do as she pleased, spend an evening reading and eating chips for her dinner with no-one to remonstrate with her, or go out for a run at night without having to explain herself to anyone. She was better alone. Despite that, she didn’t sleep well, remembering the lumbering figure among the trees and the lithe one she had held onto on the bike.


	2. Enshrouded in Moonlight

When she ventured out of her room the next morning for breakfast, she encountered the fierce redhead he’d mentioned, for the first time. She was in one of the reception rooms chatting with a strikingly beautiful, dark haired woman. When Betty wished them good morning as she passed, on her way to the breakfast room, the brunette looked up at her and Betty saw that her eyes were red from crying. She offered what she hoped was a sympathetic smile but, when Ms Blossom glared at her in a manner that seemed calculated to intimidate, she hurried on her way. Toni met her with the coffee pot and a cheerful greeting as she took a seat at her table. “I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb your wife and her friend. I didn’t realise she was upset until I’d spoken,” Betty said, concerned that she had offended her hostess.

“Oh it’s ok. Cheryl can be a little overprotective. She’s taken Veronica under her wing. Her fiancé went missing a year ago and the anniversary is pretty rough.”

“Oh my goodness. That’s awful.”

“Mmmh. He was sort of a big deal around here, you know how, in a small town, the guy who used to be the star high school quarterback becomes kind of a celebrity. He ran a community centre for disadvantaged kids but obviously that’s closed now and the kids are back on the streets, making nuisances of themselves. Even I kind of miss him and I didn’t have a lot of time for him when he was about. Still, Veronica’s strong. She’ll survive. What about you? Plans for the day?”

“Oh yes, I was going to mention that. I’m actually going camping for a couple of days but I’d like to keep the room. Obviously I’ll pay the full rate. I need somewhere to leave my things and I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” Betty explained.

“You’re going out there alone?” Toni looked worried at that prospect. She’d noticed, since her arrival, that the whole town seemed nervous about the woods. The whole town except for Waldo of course.

“No, I’m going with a journalist I met yesterday. Jones is his name.” Toni relaxed at that.

“Ok, yeah you’ll be safe with Jughead. He’s definitely not a predator. He’s from here. Did he tell you that? We grew up together.” Betty was interested in that information but she thought it would be inappropriate to try to quiz Toni about him. If it got back to him he might think she was interested in him as something more than a colleague. She made a polite sound and let the conversation end as Toni bustled off to attend to an old lady who seemed to be more of a fixture than a resident.

She heard Jughead pull up on his motorcycle at ten as arranged. When she got downstairs she found him embracing Cheryl’s distraught friend on the sidewalk. The woman kissed him on the cheek before heading off to her own car. “Shall we go pick up your car first? Easier to transport the gear. I’m already pretty fully laden.” He gestured at the full panniers.

“Friend of yours?” She asked, aware as she heard the words, that they could be interpreted as jealous.

He looked down, avoiding her eye, as he replied, “Yeah.” She took that to mean that she should mind her own business which merely served to make her more curious.

Two hours later, her car was packed with everything that Jones considered necessary for a camping trip of indeterminate duration. The amount of food they had bought at the grocery store made her suspect they were going to be out there for a month until she remembered how much he had consumed at the diner the night before. There was a heavy duty tent and polar weight sleeping bags, groundsheets and numerous sleeping mats. Jones had a small camping stove and a cooking pot as well as two enamel mugs, billy cans and spoons. Once he was satisfied that nothing had been forgotten, he offered to drive, taking the road out of town, towards the logging road where they had had their encounter the night before. She glanced over at him as he drove. He was gnawing on a strip of jerky. “So Toni said you grew up here. Have there always been sightings?”

“Toni has a lot to say,” he answered tersely. “It’s a weird town. Always has been.”

“Come on,” she insisted. “Give me more than that. Weird how?”

He took a deep breath before answering. “When I was in high school five of my classmates were murdered by a stick monster that came out of the woods and poisoned people with Fresh Aid. Weird like that.”

“What the hell? What do you mean a stick monster?” her voice high and incredulous.

“Google the gargoyle king. You’ll see what I mean.” She did as he said and was taken to a website where the so called gargoyle king had a place alongside other creepy-pastas like the Slender Man and Ben Drowned. It was a skull-headed twiggy nightmare but it was fictional like the others. “These are all just urban legends and memes, Jughead. You want me to believe this thing was real, like physically real?” She began to be concerned that Toni’s judgement of his character had been mistaken. He sounded pretty crazy right now.

“I don’t want you to believe anything Doc. Five kids died. Maybe it was some kind of malevolent spook, maybe it was a nut job with a taste for theatrics, maybe it was a Satanic ritual. Who the fuck knows? They’re still dead either way. Literally nothing is impossible in Riverdale. Maybe what we saw last night was some kind of Neanderthal throwback or maybe it was a drunk in a costume. Maybe it was some guy making a hoax video for his YouTube channel. Let’s try and find out. I’m keeping an open mind.”

“Well don’t keep it so open that your brain drops out,” she cautioned.

"So original Cooper. You get that out of a fortune cookie?” She slapped his shoulder playfully. She liked the teasing. It felt companionable. She supposed he probably wasn’t dangerous but he seemed more open to conspiracy theories than was exactly conventional. She would have to keep an eye open for his tinfoil hat. Perhaps it was under the beanie.

Eventually they arrived at the trail head and he pulled the car up onto the side of the road. It took a while to unload the gear and distribute it between the two huge packs. She suspected that he was carrying much more than his fair share but his provisions were pretty bulky so she allowed it without comment. It was midday, still cold but not nearly as freezing as the night before and she was better equipped now, with her woollen hat, neck gaiter and a down jacket so thick that she was barely able to get her arms to her sides.

They hiked through dense tree cover for a couple of hours, pine needles crunching beneath their feet, small animals scrabbling away from them as they crashed through fallen twigs and dried bracken. Finally the forest began to thin a little and the ground was littered with rocks and luxuriant, viridescent moss. Ahead the mountains loomed, the skies darker and more ominous now than when they had set out in weak winter sunlight. The air was slicingly clear and cold, scented with the spruce that surrounded them. There wasn’t a single cloud to soften the obdurate steeliness of the sky. He pointed to a channel between the peaks. “I was thinking we’d follow the tree line up that gully. There are relatively more sightings on higher ground under tree cover so that seems like the most likely path.” She nodded and looked ahead determinedly, shifting the weight of the pack slightly. “And be careful. There’s barely any phone coverage out here so if you twist an ankle we’re in big trouble.”

“Fine. I’m not as incompetent as you seem to think Jones,” she snapped back.

“I don’t think you’re useless Doc. I just don’t want to take any risks with you,” he grinned. He could be ridiculously charming when he chose to turn it on. The good looks and open smile made a heady combination with his intelligence and curiosity. She began to feel a little concerned that her interest in him might linger when she headed home. When she had returned from her sojourn in the woods of Oregon and Washington she’d been picking sticky burrs off her clothes for weeks. She’d had to be patient, pulling off each hooked seed head one by one as she found it. It had been laborious. She wondered if after this trip it would be thoughts of Jones that she had to expunge.

As they climbed, scrambling over the rockiest places, she mentioned the woman that she had seen him greeting outside Thistle House. “Veronica Lodge,” he said. “She was engaged to a friend of mine. Still is I suppose.”

“The guy who disappeared?”

“Well ‘was disappeared’ might be more accurate.”

“More conspiracy theories? Are you going to suggest it was the slender man that took him?”

“Veronica’s dad is Hiram Lodge. Heard of him?” She began to shake her head when she realised that she did know the name.

“Lodge? As in Lodge Holdings? That’s the name plastered on all those vacant lots in town isn’t it? Lodge Holdings, Riverdale, Home of the Sasquatch.”

“Yeah, he’s bought up half the town. Says he’s going to make it a big tourist centre off the back of the Bigfoot sightings. He’s about as legit as Vito Corleone and half as public spirited. He didn’t like Archie, not at all. Veronica and Arch announce their engagement and then…oops…no more Archie.”

Betty stared at him, eyes wide. “You think Hiram Lodge offed his future son-in-law?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Maybe, I guess. It wouldn’t have been too hard. Archie was a really good guy. Kind of innocent. Even in this fucked up, wicked town he kept trying, kept laying himself on the line for others. I got out as soon as I could. I hadn’t been back in years, not since I left for college, until I came to help with the search. I suppose he’s dead but I don’t think any of us have accepted it yet. If he’s really gone then Riverdale is done, lost to the darkness. If I had to take a guess I’d imagine that his body is in an oil drum at the bottom of Sweetwater River or in the basement of one of those disused buildings Lodge has bought up. I can’t say any of that to Veronica but I’m keeping my eyes open.

“I’ve been coming back every couple of months since just to see what I can dig up. I started to hear these weird stories, things people couldn’t explain. Then Weatherbee went off the rails. And he’s not the only one. Folks are scared to come out and say what they’ve seen but even Pop, you know, you met him last night, he says he saw something behind the diner a few weeks ago, kind of staring in. It took off when a train came through but he was freaked out by it. Anyway I put around that I’m investigating Bigfoot but I’m also trying to get the juice on Lodge. I’d like to catch at least one monster.”

It was just after three in the afternoon and the day already seemed to be drawing to its end. The sun was always low at this time of year but now it seemed to be preparing to sink below the tree line in the west. Jughead looked around when they reached a stream below the next ridge that they needed to ascend. The trees thinned away towards the edge of a high escarpment, looking down over the forest they had traversed earlier, hundreds of feet below. “I think we’d better make camp. I’ll get some firewood while we’ve got the light. You mind the gear and take a rest for a while. Don’t wander off.”

“Yes dad,” she replied sarcastically, although actually she felt too exhausted to do much but unroll a mat and sit for a few minutes. She was pretty fit but the cold weather, along with the heavy pack and a rather disturbed night’s sleep, were all taking a toll on her. She moved to the edge of the escarpment and made herself a seat to survey the ground they had covered. As he disappeared among the trees he yelled back over his shoulder, “And don’t fall down the cliff.”

“I’m not a total dummy, Jones,” she yelled back and turned to look down into the dense woodland hundreds of feet below her. Looking at the trees from above like this, she could well imagine unseen creatures alive down there in the dark shadows, concealed by the thick branches, weighted now by recent snowfall. It looked still and peaceful but she knew from her journey through the trees last night that it was full of sounds, creatures being born, copulating and then pursued and eaten by larger, fiercer beasts, tiny dramas of life and death occurring at every moment. She could look down on it and imagine it at peace, just as, from space, the teeming earth seemed perfect in its serenity. Close up things were, she knew, much more frightening. As she sat gazing down at the viridian pinnacles of the treetops, watching the setting sun brush the thin wisps of cloud with gold and ruby, she became aware of the numbing cold creeping up from her feet now that they were not warmed by the exertion of the climb. She dragged Jones’ pack over to retrieve one of the fleece blankets she had seen him pack. It was far heavier than hers, its weight making it awkward, and she experienced a spike of guilt that she had allowed him to take so much of the burden. She dragged it across her lap and began to unbuckle it. A cracking branch behind her made her twist abruptly. There, where the trees thinned, in shadow but still clearly discernible, stood…stood something. She scrambled to her feet, ready to run, barely registering the pack, falling from her lap and tumbling, tumbling over the escarpment. The thing didn’t move, just stood there, exactly unlike a human, with an uncanny stooped posture, its jaw jutting forward, watching her from under lowered brows. It was covered in a heavy pelt, mostly dark but redder over its head and neck. The fur covered its throat and cheeks but around its eyes and nose, skin was visible almost like the mask of a great ape. An attack didn’t seem imminent so she fumbled in her pocket for her phone, impatiently discarding her glove to grab it. She pressed the camera control as the creature stared at her for a long moment until Jones appeared, a little further along the tree line with an armful of firewood.

“What’s up?” he called, glancing in the direction of her gaze and dropping the fuel in alarm. The beast made a terrible moaning sound as it stared in his direction, then turned and moved into the forest with great speed and agility, still crying out as it went. Jughead ran across to her and, as the adrenaline left her, she collapsed to her knees and, humiliatingly, began to sob. He took her into his arms and held her against his chest, “Ok, you’re ok.” She felt him turn her and knew he was looking into the trees over her head.

Abruptly she gasped and pushed him back, “Shit Jug, your pack. Oh Christ, I’m so sorry.”

Once he was satisfied that the creature had disappeared into the trees and she'd managed to recall that she was not a blubbering weakling and dried her eyes, they assessed the extent of their loss. The tent was gone, his sleeping bag, blankets, the portable stove and, the loss that Jughead seemed to feel most keenly, his extra pack of Marlboros.

"Ok options. We can hike back to the car but it's three hours in the light so nearer five in darkness. Some of that descent is going to be tricky especially hungry and tired. The other option is to put together a shelter with the tarp that I brought to cover the gear and make the best of it tonight. Then we'll trek back in the morning at first light. What's your call?”

She could hardly bear to think of retracing their steps in the dark. She was tired and upset and hungry. On the other hand she didn't know what kind of shelter he had in mind and the logistics of the single sleeping bag made her feel strangely lightheaded. If it had just been the matter of an uncomfortable night she could endure it, but this seemed dangerous. "Can we really survive out here under a tarp?” she asked.

He grinned at her and pushed up his sleeves. "Do you want to go and collect the wood I dropped back there and we'll get a fire going?” He seemed to be some kind of outdoors man. He kindled a fire with some dried grass he found in the lee of a rock and his trusty steel lighter. Then he constructed an A frame over the blaze with twine and straight spruce branches, trimming off side shoots with a fierce looking pocket knife. He went back into the woods for more branches which he tied into three more A frames before draping the tarp over them and securing it at ground level with heavy rocks. Inside she covered the cold ground with the sleeping mats and sealed up drafts with assorted items of clothing. With the fire illuminating the side of the structure it actually felt quite cosy but when she ventured back outside she noticed the temperature had plummeted as the sun had set. He handed her a mug of hot coffee "Instant I'm afraid," and she thanked him profusely. "I'm so sorry Jughead. I'm such a klutz. If I were you I'd be furious. If you weren't so competent we'd be in real danger now.”

“I think you were entitled to be freaked out. An encounter with an X Files monster of the week is enough to make anyone twitch. Let's eat.”

They had army-style survival rations which she suspected would have been disgusting under normal circumstances but here, cold, exhausted and coming down from an adrenaline spike, it was delicious. After the stew that was her main meal he rummaged in a pocket and produced rather squashed and battered marshmallows which they held over the flames to toast. The sweetness seemed to make her unendurably sleepy but every time her eyes flickered shut the image of the beast she had seen was seared on her eyelids like a terrible shadow puppet, huge and monstrous in her recollection and she startled awake. "Sleepy?" Jones said quietly and she nodded.  
"What time is it?" she asked, reluctant to remove her hands from her bundled sweaters and jackets to check her phone.

"Almost eight." She started at that. She had imagined it was much later.

"It's always like that when you sleep outside. Your body tells you to sleep when it gets dark and wake with the light. You become like the other diurnal animals, handing over to the night shift, the bats and owls and possums." His voice was low and comforting. She liked to listen to him. "Come on, let's get you bedded down sleepyhead." She moved into the shelter and took off her boots. Suddenly she remembered that there was only one sleeping bag. She'd carelessly thrown his off the escarpment.

"What about you?”

"I'll be ok. I've got extra sweaters and I need to keep the fire going anyway. Come on, let's zip you up.”

She struggled against him and sat up. "No. There's no way I'm going to sleep knowing you're freezing to death. Look it's big, slide in here with me. The body warmth will be useful anyway.”

He stared at her, surprised. "No, it's fine, I mean, I'll be fine.”

"Hey Jughead, your virtue is safe. I can keep my hands to myself if that's what you're worried about," she insisted, a little insulted by his reluctance.

"It's not that, quite the opposite in fact," he replied and she grabbed his shoulders and dragged him nearer. He was surprisingly hot, and she simply couldn't help herself from snuggling closer to him as he gave up the fight and joined her, zipping the sleeping bag around both of them, reaching his arms around her so that there was space for them both in the hood.

“How come you know all this survival stuff?” she whispered against his chest.

“I was on the street for a while as a kid. Things at home were…complicated …so I moved out and ended up bedding down wherever I could. I guess I learned to improvise.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That sounds rough. My teens were bad but at least I had a roof over my head.”

“We’re ok now though. We made it,” he whispered against her hair.

She dozed, warm in his arms, her foot pushing between his to make the most of his surprising surfeit of body heat.

Something awoke her, sometime later, perhaps a sound outside or the rustling of the tarp. She noticed that he felt tense, certainly not asleep. She looked up to see his eyes open, staring at the side of the tarpaulin.

"Do you think it's going to come back. Is that why you’re so tense?" she whispered, beginning to feel anxious.

"No, that's not what I'm worried about.”

"Tell me then. You’re so stiff that it's making me nervous," she replied.

He snorted, not entirely in amusement. ”I’m in this tiny sleeping bag with my arms around this unbelievably beautiful girl. She keeps pushing herself against me and making these incredible soft little sounds as she sleeps. I am trying against all of the instincts that I have to be a gentleman. I'm afraid it's a battle that I'm losing. Or at least part of me is losing. Civilisation only runs so deep Doc.”

His honesty took her breath away, he was completely real, entirely himself. It made her ashamed to pretend that she didn’t feel something for him. She realised that her own reservations seemed trivial and pointless. Why shouldn’t she have this one thing, this one moment of abandon just for her own pleasure? Surely one indiscretion could be allowed. "Well stop being such a gentleman then," she murmured and she struggled up close enough to place a kiss on his jawline. With that permission his restraint was swept away and he kissed her fervently, rolling them so he was over her and reaching his fingers into her hair, pulling out the elastic that was holding it back. He sighed as she reached a hand under his sweater to run her fingers against his chest. She felt his heart pounding under the smooth warm skin. He held a hand to her cold cheek as he kissed her and then trailed his fingers gently over her throat and started an agonisingly slow journey towards her breast.

“You are the most interesting girl I’ve ever met Betty. I could investigate you forever,” he whispered. It was, she realised, the endearment she had always wanted from a lover.

Just as she was losing herself in the embrace, there was a sound from outside the tarpaulin. A shuffling, dragging noise that made her blood run cold. He heard it too and stopped. "Probably a possum," he whispered.

"Or a bear," she replied, unsure if that was a best or worst case scenario.

Then another sound, a moan, like an animal but redolent with meaning. And then again, this time clearer. Jughead startled and began to clamber to his feet, his eyes wild. "What? Jughead, what is it?" she hissed.

From outside the sound again but this time it was even clearer, "Juggggg," a sound of pain and fear and desperate need. "Juuuugiee." He was out from the makeshift tent in a second. She was only moments behind. There, standing by their fire, was the creature but now it was clear that it was no animal. It was a man, filthy, his long hair disheveled and matted, a heavy beard reaching over his chest, naked but for some kind of animal skin tied at his waist with a frayed rope, but a man nonetheless.

Jughead’s expression was a complex combination of many emotions, horror, sorrow, joy, love, all jostling for position. "Hey there Arch, how ya doing?" he said.


	3. Keep To Our Own Kind

At the sound of the name something seemed to break apart in the creature. It collapsed to its knees and began to sob piteously. As soon as she heard the sound of its weeping Betty metamorphosed from the terrified girl facing a monster into the professional psychologist with the chance to help a person in crisis. She crouched beside the man’s quaking form and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey there Archie. Ok, you’re safe now. You don’t need to be scared because Jughead is going to take care of you. He’s been out here looking for you. Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

Through a curtain of filthy red hair he looked mutely into her eyes for a second. “Jughead can you fix him something warm to drink? Not too hot though. And find some food, sugar preferably.” Archie had stopped crying now and was simply staring at the ground. Betty was concerned that he not become unresponsive so she tried to hold his attention while Jug put water to heat over the fire. “So Archie, are you hurt? Are you injured? Pain?” He looked up again before shrugging off the animal skin from his shoulder. What she saw horrified her but she maintained her calm demeanour, trying to keep him from going into shock. Three huge, terrible scars ran from his shoulder to his stomach, the skin puckered and rough around the edges. She noticed that one side of his chest seemed deformed, possibly the after effects of a pneumothorax that had gone untreated. The scars looked like there had been necrosis. He really shouldn’t have survived. She spoke a little louder, partly to warn Jughead to prepare himself for what he was about to see. “Oh yes, that looks like a nasty injury. Can you tell me how that happened? Archie? What did this to you?”

He simply looked at her. There was no indication that he understood the question. 

Despite her warning, when Jughead returned holding a mug, he flinched back in horror at the sight of the wound. He recovered quickly and crouched beside his friend. “Hey man, here’s some warm coffee.” He held out the mug but Archie stared at it uncomprehendingly. 

She shook her head quickly, and murmured, “I think you’ll have to help, Jug.”

He nodded and held the mug up to Archie’s parched and cracked lips. “Hey man, try to take a sip if you can. I’m just going to tip the mug a little, get ready.” He put a hand behind Archie’s head to guide him and his friend managed to take a little of the coffee, dribbling a fair amount into his thick beard. As he drank some recollection seemed to spark in his mind and he reached up to take the mug in his hands. Jughead handed it over and Archie managed to drink, two handed like a toddler. 

When the mug was empty he looked at Jughead and smiled. “Jug,” he said, softly.

“Yeah man. Here I am. And you’re Archie and this is my friend Betty. Now look what I have here.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a package of Red Vines. “These were always your favourites weren’t they?” He opened the package and held one of the candies up for Archie to inspect. He took it in his hand and then held it to his nose and sniffed it, like an animal. Smelling the sweetness, he immediately stuffed it into his mouth and chewed, spitting and dribbling a little and reaching for more. “Woah there man. Slow down. Remember the sugar rushes you used to get from these at the Twilight? You’d be jumping from car to car and yelling until the sugar crash hit.” Archie stared as he spoke. It was clear he wasn’t understanding. Jug looked at her in panic, “What the hell Betty? What’s wrong with him?”

“I’m not a clinician but I’d be very surprised if there isn’t some PTSD going on here. That wound wasn’t treated. It looks like an animal attack. He must have lost so much blood. So there’s the after effects of major trauma, catastrophic blood loss, infection. The aphasia… it could be psychological shock, but I’d want to see if there’s evidence of a brain injury too. I really don’t know how he survived this but we need to get him to hospital as soon as we can. Veronica is going to be beside herself.”

At the name Archie startled and looked at them. “Ronnie?” he said, his brown eyes awash with tears.

“She’s ok Arch, missing you, but she’s doing ok. You can see her pretty soon.” 

Without warning Archie was sobbing again. “What?” he asked, quietly, mournfully, tapping his mutilated chest.

“You’re my pal Archie Andrews, you’re Veronica’s fiancé, you’re a legend in Riverdale High football, you’re the owner operator of the El Royale Community Centre. You had a rough go of it but you’re with us now and you’re going to get better.”

“Absolutely,” Betty agreed. “Now Archie, do you think you might be more comfortable in some clothes rather than this thing? What is this?” Betty asked, pulling at the skin.

“I think it used to be a bear,” Jug replied, wrinkling his nose. “And there’s still quite a lot of bear in it with him. I’ll try and find something for him to put on.”

They took tuns to sit with Archie through the long night, she dozed occasionally, sometimes noticing that Jughead was snoring softly but, whenever she looked at Archie, his eyes were open and alert. He wouldn’t venture under the tarpaulin, wouldn’t surrender the remains of the bear, wouldn’t put on the clothes he was offered. She was worried that when the time came to pack up and head out, he would take off and they’d lose him again. They’d considered and discounted the idea of calling for Search and Rescue to send a chopper. By the time they got a phone signal they’d be almost back at the car and the rotors would probably spook him and he’d bolt. “If we get him down to the car, maybe we can build trust enough that he’ll come with us,” Betty ventured. “Seeing you was what brought him out of hiding, so it might work.”

The next day they made reasonably quick progress down the mountainside. There was thick mist over the trees, desaturating the colours of the forest, making everything seem spooky and unreal. Archie was barefoot but it was a struggle to keep up with him over the stony ground. His ordeal seemed to have diminished him mentally but physically he was in good shape. All the way through the forest Betty had the sense that they were being followed, probably something to do with the disorientating fog. As they approached the road Archie became more nervous, looking around himself anxiously. Jughead’s reassurances seemed to be less and less effective the nearer they came to civilisation. Betty tried to take his hand but he shook her away.

“I really think he might run Jughead. What if we get Veronica out here to meet us at the car?” she suggested. 

He nodded and grabbed his phone. “I’ve got a signal.” He made the call. “Hi Veronica. Look I’ve got a situation here. Nothing to worry about but I could use your help. Could you come out to the logging road, you know, out past the convent? Stop by the trail head, you’ll see the car. Ok, thanks, see you in thirty.”

Betty looked at him in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell her?” 

“I didn’t want her driving out here in a panic and I didn’t want her to tell her dad. I’ve still got a bad feeling about him. Let’s not give him a heads up so he can finish the job.” Betty was no longer able to judge if his fears were a manifestation of incipient paranoia or simply prudent precautions. Perhaps this was how people like Waldo, like her mother, began to lose their grip on reality. She didn’t know if she was more convinced by his hypothesis or by the magnetic way in which her eyes seemed drawn to his, unable to break away.

When they got to the trail head they could already hear Veronica’s car approaching. Jug suggested that she stay back with Archie. “I need to warn her Betty. It’s going to be a shock.” He smiled at Archie who was more anxious by the minute. “Hey Archie. You’re doing great buddy. Wait here with Betty for a second will you? There’s nothing to worry about.” He put his hand on Archie’s shoulder and received a smile in return. She saw the tears spring up in Jughead's eyes as he turned and made his way to the road. Archie crouched down by a rotten log and was soon engrossed in pulling bugs from the soft wood and eating them. It turned Betty’s stomach but his attention was distracted when Veronica got out of her car and stood facing Jughead. She couldn’t hear what he said to her but she saw her stumble and him reach out a steadying arm to hold her up. She was looking around frantically, pulling at Jughead’s shirt as he spoke. Then she stopped, listening, nodding slowly. Jughead turned back to the forest and called, “Ok Doc, see if he’ll come out with you.” 

She bent and touched Archie gently on the arm and when he looked up she pointed towards Veronica and Jughead. “Hey Archie, look. It’s Veronica. It’s your girl.” He looked where she pointed rather than at her fingertip. With her psychologist’s hat on she thought that was a good sign. He seemed transfixed, standing stock still with a mouthful of beetle, processing, and then he was off towards Veronica, so fast that she had no hope of keeping up with him. As she followed him she heard some kind of animal cry out in pain or rage and she hastened to escape those benighted woods. 

She heard Veronica scream “Archie, oh Archie. I thought you were gone. Oh thank God.” It didn’t seem to matter to her that her beau was some kind of wild mountain man, barely dressed, non verbal to all intents and purposes, dirty and wrapped in the carcass of an animal. She was in his arms, weeping against his chest and stroking his grimy hair, offering prayers of gratitude. As Archie held her she could see some of the tension he had been holding in his neck and shoulders melt away. Her touch was more meaningful to him that all of their cajoling and persuasion. He instantly looked more like a modern human and not some evolutionary throwback. Veronica seemed able to draw him back.

When Betty caught up to them she noticed that Jug was using his phone. She assumed he was about to call the hospital to alert them to their imminent arrival but when she looked over his shoulder she saw he was using a share trading app. “Oh my god Jug. This is not the time to update your stock portfolio. What are you thinking?” 

He glanced up and looked at Veronica, still holding onto Archie like he was made of gold and rubies not scar tissue and filth. Impatiently he tapped his phone and showed her the screen, “Veronica just told me,” he said. A news site appeared, the headline “Bigfoot: The Proof” She scanned the story, seeing Waldo’s name in paragraph one. Apparently after they had left him he had stayed in the woods all night. Eventually he got the result he had wanted for so many months, a distant but clear, focused and decently lit image of the Sasquatch. 

She stared at the picture. It was Archie. She recognised the rope around his waist. “Ok that’s…interesting but what’s with the shares?” she said looking up at Jughead from the screen. 

“Look at what’s happened to shares in Blossom Logging." She could see from the app that the share price was in free fall. She was still bewildered by Jughead’s attitude both to the Sasquatch revelation and his sudden fascination with the financial markets. 

“I have no idea how you’re putting this together Jughead but at this moment we need to get Archie the medical help he needs. Let’s get going.” She was determined to go with them, to help solve the mystery. It wasn’t about Jones and his sensitive eyes and his beautiful arched brows, she told herself. It was about getting to the bottom of what was going on in the forests, about uncovering the empirical truth, putting the wild speculation to rest, restoring order to the world and her own mind.

They put Archie into her SUV rather than trying to squeeze into Veronica’s vintage sports coupé. When she got to the highway she was about to make the right turn into town when Jughead put a hand on her arm and said, “Take the left Betty. Let’s take him to Greendale General instead. I have a bad feeling.” He leaned back to the rear seat passengers, “Veronica, let’s keep the good news to ourselves for a while, just until we can find out what happened.” Veronica nodded, so relieved and happy that she would have agreed to anything.

Veronica stayed with Archie when he was admitted to the hospital. It was the only way to keep him calm enough to receive treatment. When Betty and Jughead were called in to see him after dozing in the families’ waiting room for two and a half hours, he was clean and fresh in a hospital gown entirely uncontaminated by bear. His hair was still matted and his beard was so bushy that he could have won a hipster beauty pageant but he smelled like a human rather than a ursine graveyard. He smiled as they entered and Veronica gave them the medical history. “He’s had more scans and swabs than I could count. There’s evidence that he had a fractured skull. They can’t say if there was brain damage or if he’s non verbal because of shock. He has to have a brain scan tomorrow. They say that the chest wound certainly punctured a lung but it’s healed pretty well, considering. They can’t explain why he didn’t bleed out. He’s badly malnourished, he’s got scurvy, his poor gums are bleeding, he’s been surviving on raw meat, there’s way too much vitamin A in his system. His feet are a mess, there’s some frostbite, he might lose a couple of toes.”

“So you’re doing great then buddy?” Jug said and tapped his friend’s arm lightly. In response Archie turned to him and hugged him until Jug had to push him away to breathe. 

Then, to everyone’s amazement, he took Betty’s hand and shook it warmly. “Betty” he said and looked at Veronica as if he was making introductions at a society party. 

Veronica sobbed and then hugged Betty, “Thank you for bringing him back to me. Thank you both so much.” As Betty and Jughead walked out to the parking lot, having promised to come back later that evening with Veronica’s car, she kept thinking about the beautiful princess and her wild man lover, Belle and her Beast. It hadn’t occurred to Veronica to cut the ties between herself and her poor broken boyfriend. Betty wondered if that was a strength or a weakness.

“You hungry? Shall we stop at Pop’s?” Jughead asked, breaking into her revery as he reached out for the car keys. She nodded, and he pulled away from the hospital, heading back to Riverdale.

“They seem pretty devoted. Have they been together for years?” she asked Jughead, keen to understand how Veronica could so unquestioningly accept her lover even in his new guise of wild man of the woods. 

"High school sweethearts," he replied with a smile. "He fell in love with her at first sight. It took her a little longer to get on board but Archie can get under your skin somehow." 

"He certainly got under the bear's," she quipped, and then put her hand over her mouth. "Oh God I'm sorry, that was so inappropriate,” then she saw his shoulders shaking. 

"No, don't apologise. I need the laugh." he spluttered. “Christ, that thing stank. And I've no idea how much of it was dead bear and how much was him!” 

When they'd stopped giggling, she began to try to figure out what was going on. “So shares in logging are down. What are you thinking?" 

“Like I said, I always have the instinct to follow the money. That’s what it’s normally all about. That, or sex I guess.” She noticed that he glanced at her, gauging her reaction, when he said that. They were going to have to talk about the make out session at some point. Not now though. Other things were more pressing and she still didn’t entirely trust herself after that moment of madness.

“But surely the money goes down the drain when the stock price drops? No-one’s benefitting from that.”

“Oh someone’s always making a killing. A share price drops and a crafty buyer picks up a company for a song. Maybe it might be worth making the share price fall by hoaxing a cryptid into the picture. The markets are twitchy. If they think this thing’s going to be given a protected habitat, investors start to abandon ship. So someone unscrupulous fakes a Bigfoot and then buys up shares in Cheryl’s company at the bottom of the market and, when there turns out to be no Sasquatch, they make a killing.”

“Ok, but it was just Archie wearing a bear. Who knew that except us? For all an investor knows, there really is a monster in the woods. Waldo even has the pictures to prove it.” 

“I guess you’re right. I don’t know, I still think there’s something in this. Oh my god, this place is a circus.” 

They were pulling into town, both gawping at how busy the main street was. There were lots of folks in outdoor clothing, burdened with camera gear and camping equipment. There was a line outside Pop’s stretching down the block.

“This is crazy. We’ll get something to eat at my dad’s instead. Hiram’s dream’s certainly coming true. We need to find out who else is benefitting. Who’s buying logging stock? How do we do that?” His beautiful eyebrows were knitted together in concentration, trying to figure it out. She wanted to help. She could have convinced herself that it was all about the mystery if it weren’t for the warm feeling in her chest when he said “we.”

“I might be able to help. I need to make a begging phone call though.”

He grinned at her endearingly and pulled up outside a large, white painted, suburban home. It was a perfectly ordinary place but somehow it didn’t seem to match the impression she had of Jughead. He seemed a little too edgy for this comfortable, quiet neighbourhood. There was a police cruiser in the driveway. 

“Hey Jug, the police are here. Is everything ok?”

“Maybe I should have warned you. My dad’s the sheriff of this wicked little town. Which actually figures when you know him. Come on, let’s eat.”

She stared at him in surprise. He was never what she expected. “Well Jones, don’t you just keep unfolding like a flower.” she said and he grinned again.

He ushered her indoors and raided the refrigerator for breakfast food. “It’s always breakfast time when I’m cooking,” he explained. “It’s all I know how to fix.” Soon he was setting fluffy pancakes and crispy bacon in front of her along with the Riverdale staple of Blossom Maple Syrup. As if summoned by the food, there was a footfall on the stairs and an older, grizzled version of Jughead appeared.

“Hey boy. Can I get in on this all day breakfast? I was on duty all night and asleep as soon as I got home, so I’m hungry as a bear and twice as grouchy.” He saw Betty, at the counter and looked at his son in surprise. 

“Dad, this is Doctor Cooper, a friend of mine.” Jughead’s dad grinned like he’d just been told he’d won the state lottery and proceeded to shake her hand enthusiastically. She told him that she was Betty not Doctor Cooper and he said he was FP not Sheriff Jones. They sat together at the kitchen island, eating breakfast and drinking Jughead’s viscous version of coffee at three in the afternoon. She wondered if he would run his theories past the representative of law enforcement sitting right in front of him but he didn’t. There was a slightly strained atmosphere, something unspoken between them, but she kept her counsel and made polite conversation about the crowds in town and the need for greater regulation on parking in Main Street. 

Eventually FP stood up, patting his belly. “Well boy, I’d best get cleaned up and back to the station. Duty calls.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Jug said, and his dad winced a little, before smiling at them both and disappearing back up the stairs.

She didn’t say anything, just looked at him, until he pulled off his hat and ran his hand impatiently through his hair. “It’s complicated, Doc. Hiram Lodge got him the job. I think he turns a blind eye to keep it. Like I said, while I was growing up it was pretty bad between us. He drank. I’m happy he’s sober and working but I don’t really know where his loyalties lie. I guess I don’t trust him.” He met her eyes and she saw pain in his expression and she wanted to soothe it away. She reached out and gently took his hand where it lay on the counter. She was losing her internal battle against her feelings. She felt like land, reclaimed from the sea with huge efforts and labour, earthworks and broken rocks keeping the water at bay with constant vigilance. Somehow this man surged over her defences as if they were nothing and she was overwhelmed. Struggling against it was exhausting so she gave in to the waves of emotion.

“Should we talk about last night?” she asked, wondering what answer she wanted.

“I guess. I mean Archie’s been missing a year. Couldn’t he have stayed away another half hour?” Jughead muttered grumpily.

“Only that long?” she said, provocatively, looking up under her lashes, enjoying the way he gulped and dragged in a trembling breath. Suddenly it seemed that this wasn’t something that he was doing to her but rather something they were doing together. He was as adrift as she was, as overcome by the tides as her.

He blew out his breath through pursed lips and then reached out to stroke her cheek softly. He leaned forward to place his lips lightly against hers and she found herself almost crawling across the kitchen island to get more pressure, to kiss him more deeply. There was a warning sounding in the back of her mind that this wasn’t the kind of kiss one had with a casual hookup in a town you were about to leave without a backwards glance. She turned away from that warning and ran headlong into the danger. His hand was at her throat and her breath was shallow and panting, she wanted to sweep the plates from the counter and climb up to lie there to have him feast on her instead. She wanted to undress him and explore him with her lips, her tongue. She wanted to make him gasp and tremble against her. 

There was a cough and a heavy footstep on the stair and they flew apart as FP descended in uniform. It was the kind of deliberate entrance one made when one had already seen more that one had intended and had retreated to make a louder and more obvious entrance. Betty felt her cheeks flushing and noted the same pink hue suffuse Jughead’s face. “I’m off to work,” said FP. “Back around six a.m. Certainly not before that,” he called, with laughter in his voice as he went out of the door. 

As they heard the cruiser pull away Jug let his head fall into his hands. “We really cannot catch a break here, can we?”

She laughed and looked at her watch, recovering herself. “Look if we’re going to find out about shares I need to make that call. So, raincheck, ok?” She was diverting him. Her comfortable, settled life was under assault from this man with his enthusiasms and obsessions and his chaotic energy. She needed time to assess that threat and develop some kind of strategy. Leaping between the sheets with him would definitely not make that any easier.

She scrolled her contacts until she found Charles’ handsome face smiling at her, wearing his ridiculous Christmas sweater from last year’s sad parody of family Christmas. It had been just the two of them, a turkey breast and her homemade apple pie, both of them feeling like the survivors at the end of a country house murder mystery. “Charles, hi! No, I don’t only call when I want something… Well I do actually want something this time…” She explained that she wanted to know who was buying stocks in Blossom Logging, he made a big thing of how difficult and illegal it was and then said he’d do it, just as she expected. “Ok, so I’ll wait to hear from you. What are we doing for Christmas? Really? Ok, I’m excited.”

Jughead waited patiently, an enquiring expression on his face until the call ended. “My brother, well, half brother. He’s an agent in the FBI. He’s on it. Might take a day or so.” Jughead nodded, still waiting. She looked at him blankly.

“You’re excited…?” he prompted. 

“He’s met someone. So three of us for Christmas this year.” Jughead raised an eyebrow, clearly not content with that much of the story and she found herself telling him about her mother, pregnant at sixteen, giving up her baby son to a religious order of dubious legitimacy and seeming to forget about him, about how she gave up her eldest daughter to the same order when Polly found herself pregnant, how she abandoned her youngest child, Betty, and took off to who-knew-where at the behest of a charismatic cult leader when Betty hadn’t yet finished high school. Charles had tracked her down, trying to find his birth mother, abandoning the attempt when the nature of the woman was revealed. “So it’s been just the two of us. But now there’s a third, we’re almost a real family,” she concluded with a smile.

“Wow Doc. I thought I’d take the trophy for shittiest parents in any room but you might just have me beat there,” he said, reaching out to pull her into a hug. She began to resist but he whispered, “It’s ok, it’s just a hug. No agenda,” and she rested her head against his reassuring chest, feeling him kiss her hair again. It made her want to weep it was so soft and tender. She wasn’t used to affection, had never experienced it much, and it made her reach her arms around him and squeeze him until he laughed and tilted her chin up to kiss her forehead. “Now much as I’d like to stay here and hug you some more, we should get Veronica’s car back to her and check on the patient.” She believed she could resist the carnal feelings she was harbouring for him, not easily, but she could summon that resolve. The tenderness and understanding however, that was so much harder to resist.


	4. Serve Who We Serve

Betty needed to shower and change before heading for Greendale so they stopped by Thistle House to find it swarming with wannabe monster hunters. Jughead waited, chatting with Toni as she checked in another cryptic fan and hung the "No Vacancy" sign. Later, in the car, he told Betty what he had learned. Cheryl had been on the phone with investors half the night. She was worried that she might lose control of the company. She was trying to make them see how ridiculous the whole thing was, telling them that Weatherbee was hoaxing them, but they were nervous. Toni was feeling guilty that the sighting was so good for her business when it was imperilling Cheryl's but, as she had said, they might need the side hustle if Blossom Logging was snatched away.

Veronica was also a woman near the edge when they got to the hospital, her glamour beginning to peel and smudge. Archie was asleep but she was terrified that he might run away or become distressed without her nearby. Eventually Jughead’s promise to stay through the night convinced her to go home and get some rest although Betty took even more persuading to go with her. “There’s no point in both of us staying,” he said. “Keep her company and make sure she doesn’t tell anyone where he is. I’m just going to nap and eat vending machine chips all night anyway,” Jughead coaxed. Reluctantly she agreed and, an hour later, was in Veronica’s luxurious apartment, still wishing she was back under a tarpaulin in the snowy woods with Jughead.

Veronica poured them each a glass of wine and patted the bed next to her for Betty to sit. “Girls’ sleepover Betty. I haven’t done this in forever. When did life get so serious?”

Betty smiled, “I think it’s probably a myth that life’s supposed to be easy. We’re all struggling most of the time, aren’t we? But you have someone to struggle with and to struggle for. That’s got to mean something.”

Veronica smiled softly. “I never imagined that I’d have this. In my family relationships are always transactional, about what we can get from people. He’s taught me that there’s another way. Just love and generosity and selflessness. I don’t always get it right but I’m trying. He makes me a better person just by being near. When it seemed like I’d lost him I thought I might go crazy, but it was good too, somehow. To know that someone could mean so much to me, that I could love so much.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks and Betty was in awe of her strength and her vulnerability. She wondered if she could ever be so brave herself. “Hey but what about you and Jughead? He’s pretty far gone on you,” Veronica laughed, dashing away her tears.

“Oh it’s nothing. We barely know each other. Just friends,” Betty answered, trying to dismiss the suggestion that they were involved, because if she admitted it to Veronica she would have to admit it to herself.

“Oh my darling, Jughead doesn’t make friends. He’s known Archie since they were babies. I’m barely an acquaintance even though I’ve known him since high school. I matter to him because I matter to Archie. You come to town and within days he’s taking you on camping trips. And you can’t tell me nothing happened. He practically licks his lips when you walk into a room.”

“Well I wouldn’t say **nothing** happened but let’s just say that Archie’s timing leaves something to be desired.” Betty found herself blushing. Clearly the sleepover vibe was making her regress to her bashful high school self.

“Oh my God, did Jughead actually make a move? He literally never does that. Like I say, he’s so into you. And I can see why, you’re a catch. Beautiful and brilliant. He’d be a fool to let you get away.” Veronica’s excitement made her eyes sparkle and Betty could see why Archie would struggle back from the dead for this woman.

“Oh I don’t know,” Betty demurred. She didn’t want to say that she was as frightened of the way he made her feel as she had ever been of anything, as frightened as when she had imagined herself to be in the presence of a monster in the woods. She was Red Riding Hood and she didn’t know if Jughead was the wolf or the woodsman. Perhaps he was both. She had to protect herself. “Anyway it couldn’t be, like, a whole thing. I’m in Rhode Island, he’s in New York. I have my work, he has his. It’s not practical.” 

“Love never is. And people make it work across continents, across battle lines, with terrible sicknesses and dreadful poverty. I think a professor and writer who live, what, three hours apart, can fall in love. Don’t deny yourself this Betty, don’t deny it to him. He deserves some happiness. You both do.” Now they both had tears in their eyes. “Oh mierda,” V said standing up abruptly and disappearing into the kitchen to return with two pints of ice cream and two spoons. “If it’s a sleepover let’s do it right.” 

They talked and giggled. They listened to the songs that they had cried to in high school, the songs they’d lost their virginities to, they danced to the songs they’d choose for first dances at their weddings. They cried a little and laughed a lot and finally curled up to sleep in Veronica’s enormous bed.

Charles’ call came at eight the next morning, waking Betty, still in some confusion as to where she was after all her recent relocations. “Come on little sis, you said you needed this information,” he chided.

“Ok, ok. Just let me wake up. Right, go ahead,” she muttered, heading to the kitchen in search of coffee.

“Not too much to say. There are lots of small trades happening as you’d expect but the big buyer is Lodge Holdings. They’re acting through a shell company but it was easy to get the information because the financial crimes guys are keeping an eye on it. Apparently the main guy’s got some shady connections with the Canadian drug syndicates but this seems like legit trading. They say it’s probably a hostile takeover. Is that what you need?” It was. She thought she and Jughead had both known what Charles was going to say but they hadn’t wanted to preempt the evidence. 

Veronica was anxious to get back to Archie so they headed straight to Greendale after breakfast. At the hospital they stood around Archie’s bed as he tried valiantly to tell his story, searching for words like a mechanic sorting through his tool kit for the right wrench. “Your dad,” he said hoarsely, looking at Veronica. “Danger.”

“He’s in danger?” V cried, panicked.

Archie shook his head. “Is danger.” Veronica stepped backwards and slumped into a chair.

“I knew it,” she said. “I didn’t want to face it but I knew it. Did he do this to you Archie?” Archie’s face gave her the answer and she began to cry bitterly. “Archie, I’m so sorry. You’d be so much better off if you’d never met me. I’ve brought you so much pain.” Archie tried to stand but the wires and drip tubes held him back as he struggled against them. Veronica saw his plight and she flew to him and they embraced desperately.

Jughead put a hand on her shoulder. “V we need to get this story from him. We can’t protect him otherwise. Come on Archie. You need to tell us.”

It was painful. Archie didn’t have the words and he was frustrated that they couldn’t understand. Then Betty had an idea. She ran to the children’s ward and came back with armfuls of toys. Jughead and Veronica looked at her irritably, wondering why she was playing with stuffed animals while they were trying to get to the bottom of a mystery. She explained. “Ok so if someone’s had a painful or traumatic experience sometimes a practitioner will use dolls or models to get the story clear, especially if there are language difficulties. So Archie, this is you, right?” she said, grabbing an Elmo toy. He raised his eyebrows. “I know but there weren’t many boy dolls. You can be Raggedy Anne if you prefer.” He nodded somberly, accepting Elmo. “And here,” she held out a teddy bear and he grabbed it and used the bear’s stumpy paw to reenact a bear attack on Elmo. “Ok, he’s got the idea,” Betty said with an encouraging smile. 

Over the next hour an Elsa doll, representing Veronica’s father told Elmo to go to the forest to pretend. “Pretend what buddy?” Jughead asked. Archie rummaged among the pile of toys and picked up Curious George. “Ok, assuming your dad didn’t want him to go to the woods to pretend to be a monkey it looks like Hiram wanted him to hoax the Bigfoot sightings. That’s right is it?” Archie nodded.

“But why would you do that Archie?” Veronica wanted to know and he took her hand. As she went to clasp his fingers he lifted her hand and kissed her engagement ring, a dark amethyst in a cluster of diamonds. As he looked at his fiancée, Betty found her heart fluttering at the devotion in his eyes.

Betty understood at once that the only thing that would motivate him had to be Veronica. “For you V. So he could marry you. Did Mr Lodge say he’d give you his blessing if you did this for him?” Archie nodded, tears springing up in his eyes. “People come,” he whispered.

The three interpreters looked at each other, trying to decipher his words. It was Jughead who put it together. “And they have come haven’t they? So he said he wanted you to do it so that tourists would come to town?”

Veronica took over, “Yes, my father’s been buying up land. He said it’d revitalise the town. If people came, looking for the Bigfoot, they’d have to stay somewhere, buy food, gifts, booze. It could be good for Riverdale.” She seemed to want her father’s motives to be pure even though things had gone so badly wrong. Betty saw that Jughead was about to pooh-pooh the motivation she ascribed to her father but Betty shook her head. It would be better not to divide Veronica’s loyalties until they had to. 

Jughead acknowledged her unspoken warning and turned back to Archie. “Ok Arch, so you’re out there in the woods, pretending to be Bigfoot. Is that when the bear attacked?” Jughead asked.

In answer Archie picked up a storm trooper. “Great, another character,” Jughead said dryly. Archie held Elsa up next to the storm trooper. “A pal of Mr Lodge’s,” Jughead guessed.

“No, not a pal. He chose the stormtrooper,” Veronica whispered. “A lieutenant? A capo?” Archie nodded repeatedly. “Andre?” Veronica guessed and Archie nodded again. “Daddy sent you and Andre into the forest to hoax the town that Bigfoot was real?” Archie nodded and put his hand out to stroke her hair softly. “Daddy said Andre had left to look after his sick mother. I thought it was odd because he’d told me his mom died when he was a kid.”

Archie acted out the next scene for them. The stormtrooper and Elmo walked together across the bed. The bear approached and attacked Elmo while the stormtrooper bravely saved his own skin and ran away. Elmo fought, managing to escape the stuffed bear and dragged himself to an upturned bedpan, “Is that… what? A cabin or something?” Archie nodded, engrossed in his drama. The stormtrooper emerged and when Elmo collapsed he dragged the fallen muppet into the shelter. 

“Andre tried to help?” Veronica asked and Archie nodded, then he grabbed Veronica’s purse and rummaged for her phone. He held the stormtrooper against the phone. “He called for help?” Then he held the phone against Elsa.

“Yeah, he called your dad,” Jughead retorted. Now Archie brought the stormtrooper back to the fallen Elmo and picked up a spoon that lay alongside a pot of jello next to his bed. Holding the stormtrooper and the spoon in the same hand, he used the spoon to hit Elmo violently on the head. “…and Hiram told Andre to finish you, right?” Veronica began to weep again and Betty stroked her back comfortingly.

“But where’s Andre now?” Betty asked. Archie made a gesture towards his own head as if to say he was all out of narrative.

“Nowhere good,” Jughead muttered. “I need to get to the bedpan cabin. Maybe there’s evidence there. Or Andre.”

“There’s definitely bears,” Betty observed. “I’m coming with. The gear’s still in my car, what’s left of it.” He seemed to assess the efficacy of arguing with her and reach the conclusion that it would be entirely futile.

“Do you know where it was Archie? Could you show us on a map?” she asked. Archie looked desperate to help but uncertain that he could. 

Jughead pulled up a map of the town on his phone. “Which road did you take out of town Arch? Greendale or Centreville?” They tried to retrace Archie’s steps as far as possible until Archie closed his eyes in despair. “Hey that’s ok,” Jughead said, a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “We know where to start looking. V your dad wants Archie dead. Who can you call?”

Veronica nodded. “Go Bulldogs! Go get the proof. I’ll make sure he’s safe."

“Let’s go Doc,” Jughead grinned. He seemed to be enjoying the chase more than was quite decent. She realised she was enjoying it too. 

Two hours later they pulled off a dirt road and drove down a narrow track to stop outside a tumbledown cabin. Jughead nodded at her, “Ok, that was a smart move Doc. We’d have been searching out here forever,” acknowledging the wisdom of her suggestion to make another diversion to Thistle House. As she’d said, if Cheryl was half the businesswoman she seemed, she would have detailed maps of all her holdings. 

Cheryl had invited them to the cartography room and pulled out drawer after drawer of large scale maps. They scanned the general area Archie had indicated and found a structure marked amid the trees. Cheryl explained that a conservationist had built the cabin to spend a couple of summers studying the life cycle of moths or the mating behaviour of bats or “something equally worthy and tedious.” Jughead had asked if it was still standing and Toni giggled and said that it had been pretty much intact the summer before last “because we … used it for a little party didn’t we Honey?” Cheryl actually blushed. That was quite a sight.

The cabin was clearly abandoned, the door standing open and snow blowing in over the threshold. Betty and Jughead got out of the car and approached cautiously, apprehensive that they would be the victims of a bear attack. Inside the cabin was in disarray, a table overturned, a cabinet open and food packaging lying torn on the ground. There were two cots along one wall, piles of blankets and torn pillows. Under one cot there was a kitbag with an image of a bulldog printed on the side, under the other a large black holdall. Jughead pulled the holdall onto the bed and began to search through it. “This has to be Andre’s. If it’s here then that doesn’t seem like a good omen for him.” He pulled something out from the bag, “Phone, dead of course.”

“I have a power bank in the car. I’ll fetch it. Maybe there’s something on it that can help,” Betty volunteered, heading for the door.

“Wait, hold on a sec. What the heck is this?” Jug was pulling a large square package from the bag, wrapped in brown paper and parcel tape. “Present for his late mom?”

“Open it up,” Betty passed him a kitchen knife that was lying abandoned on the sink.

He sliced open the paper carefully to reveal several smaller foil and cellophane wrapped parcels. “If I had to guess…” he sliced along one side of one of the blocks revealing a tightly packed white substance and looked up at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh Jughead, come on. It’s coke. It’s obviously coke.” 

“Unless Andre had a habit that would get a whole city wasted, this is not a personal supply. This has to be —I don’t know —hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product. Why the hell was he bringing it out into the woods?”

I’ll get that charger. Let’s see what’s on his phone.” They would have to wait for Andre’s zombie phone to glean enough charge for them to power it up. While they waited, Betty began to tidy the broken furniture and empty cereal boxes. 

He watched her with an amused expression on his face. “Whatcha doing Doc? Tidying up for when the three bears come home?”

“It relaxes me, makes me feel better to have things in order,” she explained.

“Not a fan of chaos then?”

“God no. I suppose I’m a control freak. It got worse after my mom and Polly left. I couldn’t control that, or anything really, but I had a shot at controlling my own space, my own time and attention. So I did that. Anyway, it’ll be nicer to wait in comfort.”

“Ok, agreed. Shall I get the sleeping bag?” he asked. She blushed and looked down at the broom she’d discovered by the door. “Oh I didn’t mean… I’m not trying to make a move right here. I just thought we may as well be warm.” His cheeks were flushed pink. He was beautiful in his awkwardness and she longed to kiss him. But her life was on a straight road to a destination that she had set years before, a secure, interesting career, a home of her own that couldn’t be taken from her, friends, perhaps a cat for companionship. This man was an intriguing side turn. A path into a deep forest. If she diverted from her course now, how would she find the road again? If he abandoned her she’d be alone in the forest, predators and hazards all around her, maybe she’d never find her way out. Better to stay on course, no matter how attractive the scenery or interesting the path. She was safer on her wide, open, well-mapped route.

She took a deep breath. “Look Jughead, you’re great. I really like you but I’m just not interested in starting anything with anyone right now. I have this tenure thing and courses to prepare and, …it’s just a lot. I was attracted to you and, if it could have been just a fling that would have been ok, but now we’re friends so I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it in that direction. Let’s just stay how we are. I’m comfortable with this. I’m sorry if I led you on. It wasn’t my intention to send mixed messages. I was a bit confused.”

The blush faded from his cheeks and he looked down at his boots. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push anything. I misread the signals. I apologise. I wasn’t harassing you was I?”

“God no, it was all me. Just, you know, with a clear head, I can see it’s a non starter so…yeah.”

“Ok well I’ll leave you to your cleaning. I just need to… get something from the car. Back in a few minutes.” 

He rushed for the door like the cabin was on fire and headed out into the snow, passing the window in the opposite direction to the car. “Nice work Betty. You really spread the misery around don't you? Christ,” she muttered to herself as she swept dead leaves and beetles into a heap in the middle of the floor.

He hadn’t returned fifteen minutes later when the phone screen finally lit up. She supposed his ego was bruised, he was probably walking off some anger, so she didn’t wait before picking it up. The good news was that it didn’t have fingerprint security. The bad news was that it needed a four digit passcode. She looked about, not really imagining that Andre would have written the key to his phone up on the wall. Irritated she flung the phone down onto the bed. It caught the light and a dusty pattern of fingerprints was revealed on the screen. The dirtiest areas were over the 1, the 7, the 8, the 9 and the 0. She knew people were terrible at choosing passwords. That Andre seemed to have avoided 1,2,3,4 suggested that he was, at least a little more cautious than the norm. As she pondered the best combination to attempt, Jughead came through the door looking pale and upset. 

"I just met Andre," he gasped. 

"Outside? Where?”

"Pretty much everywhere. There's a femur just outside. the door and a scapula out back. I looked for his skull but I couldn't find it anywhere. There are scraps of clothing too. I think we can be pretty sure the bear got him. I guess I'd better call my dad. You got anything from the phone?”

She explained about the pass code numbers and he rummaged in a pocket and produced a man's silver bracelet. "Found it near a vertebra" He counted under his breath and then said “Maybe his birthday 08/19 or his birth year, 1987.” He showed her the inscription on the back of the bracelet. “For Andre with love from Dad. 21 years old today. 8/19/2008,” She hoped Andre hadn’t been paying much attention in cyber security class as she nodded and tapped in a number. The screen rejected the attempt so she took a breath and tried the other. It unlocked to show a picture of a young woman and a child. 

"He had a family," Betty said quietly. "What are they imagining happened to him? We have to find out for them." She clicked through to his text messages and found a number of unread messages of increasing ferocity.

The last one read "You have still not delivered the package. Do it now or you will be terminated with immediate effect." She scrolled back through earlier messages to find the last one sent by Andre which read simply "Instruction has been carried out.” There was nothing before that.

“It just has a number. No name.” Betty muttered.

“We both know don’t we? It’s got to be Lodge."

Betty and Jughead tried to form an account of the events of almost a year earlier, piecing together Archie’s fractured narrative along with the physical evidence. Jughead seemed to have forgotten that they had been anything more than fellow investigators. He kept at a distance from her, and the frequent fleeting touches that she realised she had become accustomed to, stopped. She wasn’t finding it quite so easy to reset. Eventually they had an account that seemed to fit. Archie and Andre had come out to the woods as a team to hoax Riverdale with the existence of the Sasquatch. Archie had believed he was stimulating tourism, helping local business, Andre had been delivering about a million dollars worth of cocaine to dealers unknown. The woods seemed like a good place to carry out nefarious business deals. It had all gone off track when Archie had been attacked by a bear, staggering back to camp, injured and in agony. Maybe Andre had even tried to help. He might have been the reason that Archie didn’t die from blood loss but when Hiram’s capo called his boss for instructions he’d been ordered to finish the injured man off rather than getting him help. The fractured skull was the evidence. Andre hadn't done the job properly though. Archie was horribly wounded but not fatally. While he lay unconscious the bear, deprived of his prey, had pursued him, maybe attracted by the scent of blood. He found Andre instead. Andre had not survived the encounter and lay in parts around the cabin. 

“And when Archie came round, suffering trauma and a brain injury, he somehow conflated his hoaxing with the real world. He became the monster he’d been pretending to be,” Betty murmured.

Hiram Lodge, no doubt the source of the drugs and the deadly instructions, must have assumed that, after killing Archie, Andre had stolen his cargo and made a run for it hence the threatening text communique. Jughead moved around the cabin carefully documenting and photographing the scene before finally calling the sheriff's office and asking for his dad. "You should know dad, I'm going to be writing this up. I've got photographs and Doctor Cooper's going to send what we've got straight to her brother in the FBI. So here's your chance to pick a side. Right now." He hung up without waiting for a reply.

He turned back to Betty, “Ok so Doc, you'd better get out of here. Despite it all he could call Lodge and things might go bad. Call your brother and get him on side if you can."

"I'm not leaving you here Jug. Forget it," she protested, outraged. 

His jaw tensed and his eyes were no longer the soft ocean blue that she had come to trust. They were icy, like a mountain lake. She saw that he'd gone outside to get physical distance while he withdrew his affection. "Cooper, you go back to Rhode Island and get your tenure. I'll send you a copy of the story when it’s published. You send me a card at Christmas. I think we're all done here." She felt a terrible burning pain in her chest and she realised, with a plunging sensation of panic, that she had left it far too late to disembark from the Jughead Jones train. He must have seen something in her expression because he stood still, holding the late Andre's phone and staring at her curiously.

"It's ok Cooper, I can't imagine my dad will let Lodge kill a professor even if he's not bothered about my welfare. You don't need to be scared." 

"I'm not scared of Lodge. I don't know what I'm scared of anymore. But I don't want to drive away and leave you here. I really don't want that.”

"Well I'm sorry but I want you to go. You said no and, to me at least, that means no. I don't play games like that, I don't know how. Maybe we can be pals one day, but not today. See you around." He ushered her into the car and closed the door behind her. "Bye Doc. It's been a blast. Sorry we didn't find your Bigfoot or whatever the hell it was you were looking for." It was a very clear dismissal and so she started the car and headed back towards town. The police cruisers passed her just after she joined the main road, lights flashing and sirens blaring. She was determined not to cry like a high school girl. Her resolve lasted until she pulled up outside Thistle House. Then the floodgates opened and she wept, hunched over the steering wheel, shaking with sorrow and regret.


	5. Neck Deep in our Passions

Eventually Betty was all cried out. She found herself in turmoil, unable to work out exactly what she was mourning. She tried to think it through objectively. She wanted him, that was certain. So there was sexual frustration and disappointment but even if they had made love out there in the forest she would still have been unhappy now. There was an ache in her chest when she thought of their collaboration, figuring out the puzzle together. She enjoyed his wild theorising, his intuition, his dogged pursuit of the solution. She missed his affection, the admiring expression in his eyes when she made a suggestion or disputed his thesis. She felt contempt for herself. She had tried to pretend that she was being self disciplined when she was being a coward. And yet she simply could not allow this man to take her over as her previous lovers had. She had to maintain her integrity, her identity. Anyway, it was too late. She had rejected him and he had taken her at her word, hurt but respectful. 

As she walked through the entrance hall of Thistle House Toni was on the phone, telling a prospective guest that all of their rooms were fully booked. Betty caught her eye and whispered that she was checking out so the caller could take her room. Toni stared at her for a second and then told the caller to try the Five Seasons, before rushing out from behind the desk to put a hand on Betty’s arm. “What happened Betty? Is everything alright with Andrews? Where’s Jug?”

Her kindness brought the deluge again, much to Betty’s shame and embarrassment. “I’m sorry Toni. Jug’s still out in the forest. I’m going back to Providence. I… I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’ll go pack.”

Toni immediately took charge, revealing a commanding side that Betty had not expected. Her marriage to Cheryl suddenly made a lot more sense. “Go and lie down. You’re way too upset to start a long drive. I’m going to bring you a cup of herbal tea,” she ordered, admitting no refusal, so Betty did as she was told, dragging herself to her room, overburdened with her feelings.

Half an hour later, between tears and wild vacillation as to whether she had been wise or viciously self sabotaging, Toni was up to speed. She looked sympathetic but a little impatient. “Well Doctor Cooper, for a professor, especially a professor of psychology, you don’t seem to know your own mind.” Betty was a little shocked to be spoken to in that manner by Toni, who had seemed nothing but sweet and gentle. “I’m going to tell you something about Jones. You’re going to feel bad when I’m done but I think you need to hear it.” 

Betty nodded solemnly, accepting her fate, “When Jones was eleven years old, his momma abandoned him. She took his little sister but she left him behind with his dad. Which was a bad situation.” 

“He told me he was homeless for a while,” Betty admitted.

“He’s pretty independent and he’s got some pride too but, eventually, things were so bad that he called her up and asked if she would let him come live with her. He told her he was on the streets, that his dad was drinking, that he was scared. She said no and hung up on him. That’s a deep scar. He doesn’t date, doesn’t have relationships, because he can’t handle being knocked back. That’s why Cheryl and I were surprised that he let you in. He saw something in you that he wanted enough to take a chance. And he got turned down again.” Somehow when Toni said these things they didn’t seem like criticisms, more like simple observations. There was acceptance in what she said.

Betty was weeping again, the pain of understanding how she’d hurt him was so much worse than what she was feeling for herself. 

Toni was merciless. “He’s weird. He gets these obsessions, he can’t just be interested in something, it has to consume him and then he gets reckless, takes risks. Maybe he took one with you.”

“But that’s it. I’m not like that. I’m a planner. I prepare, I don’t veer off track. I’m cautious, maybe even a little stuck.” Betty didn’t know if she was trying to explain to Toni why they couldn’t work or to convince herself.

“But you liked him enough to take off on a camping trip, to climb on the back of that motorcycle. So you want something else don’t you? He makes you want to take a chance. You can explore other parts of you. He’ll get you interested in some crazy theory about, I don’t know, the mothman or something and rational Doctor Cooper will call him a lunatic and make him either drop it or give you some proof. It’s a balancing act. Do you think you’ll like who you’ll become without someone to bring you out of that safe space?”

Betty could see that future, an elderly bluestocking, alone in a house that never heard laughter or yelling, a quiet cat padding the hallway, a silent meal, books instead of friends. Every year her meagre life getting smaller and safer. Once she would have taken that, but now she knew there could be so much more.

“But I’ve blown it now. He won't want me anymore,” Betty mumbled.

“Well it sounds like you’ve hurt him pretty bad and, given how things went with his mom, there’s no way he’ll make the first move to make it right. That’ll be all up to you,” Toni said. As her words still hung in the air there was the sound of a motorcycle outside and Toni’s eyes opened wide in shock. “Well, hello. I take it all back. He’s overriding his core programming for you. Now that’s a surprise. What are you going to do about it?”

“I have no idea Toni. Not a clue.” 

They listened as Cheryl greeted him in the reception room and then Toni raised her eyebrows at her, “Better make up your mind PDQ Betty,” and headed downstairs. Betty gathered all of her courage. If he could go against his instincts for her, surely she could do the same for him? It was terrifying. It was funny that in the week that she went on a monster hunt, saw the bones of a dead drug runner and could have died of exposure in the woods, the scariest thing she’d encountered was the way Jughead Jones looked at her. Her heart was in her mouth, her stomach in knots. She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, listening to his voice, explaining to Cheryl that the police were gathering evidence on her land and collecting up as much of Andre as possible. She stood listening even though she knew that eavesdroppers rarely heard anything to their advantage. 

As he came to the end of his story Toni said that Betty had seemed upset when she returned. He sighed painfully. “I don’t know what’s going on Toni. If I was smart I would say she wasn't into me except as a means to scratch some kind of itch. You know me, I'm just not built that way. If that’s true then I guess I’m disappointed that that was all she wanted. Maybe it’s my fault. I’d put her on some kind of pedestal and then, when she wasn't exactly my dream girl, I was pretty mean to her. Anyway I thought I’d better say goodbye properly.”

Then Toni was speaking again. “It was a lot of tears for someone to cry just because a guy they aren’t that into is mean to them."

"Shit, she was crying? Maybe I was more of an asshole than I thought. I didn't yell or anything.”

Her stomach lurched. She made him feel guilty because she was too much of a coward to grab a hold of the most important opportunity her life had thrown her in…well forever. She had to make it right. She flung open the door and stormed into the room, marching up to him as Toni and Cheryl stood, gawping. She stood in front of him, looking up into the drowning depths of his blue eyes, and realised that she had no clue what she wanted to say. So she reached up, put a hand at the back of his neck and pulled his head down towards her. The alarm in his eyes transformed into amusement and then to something else, something thrilling. And then she kissed him. She needed him to understand what she couldn’t explain in words, that she knew he was her chance at what Cheryl and Toni and Veronica and Archie all had, that she was scared that she had ruined it, that she was terrified that he wouldn’t want her but she was equally frightened that he would. She wanted him to help her be more and she wanted to do that for him. Her thoughts were surging through her brain so tumultuously that she barely even registered the sensation of the kiss. He pulled back and whispered “Hush,” softly and kissed her again. That was what she needed to stop thinking and simply feel everything that a kiss could mean. His lips were soft against hers, and she knew he was trying not to spook her any more than she was already. His hand was on the back of her head, grounding her. When his tongue ran along her bottom lip her knees almost gave way and he wrapped his other arm around her back, holding her up. She opened her mouth, nothing was to be denied him, no barriers would be raised against him. It was the difference between an invasion and a union. Neither needed to surrender, they could form an alliance. Her heart was thumping, she could feel the pulse in her neck as she had when the monster had emerged from the trees. Her nerves were tingling as when she had clung to him under a tarpaulin, revelling in the heat of his body. She moaned against his lips and he broke the kiss and looked at her, his eyes dark and wanting. She came back to a consciousness of herself, her body pressed against his, her hands still tangled through his hair, moaning in lust in Cheryl’s elegant reception room. She pulled away abruptly, gasping “Cheryl!” 

“Really? “ he said, a crooked grin appearing on his face. “That’s who you’re thinking about in the middle of our moment?” She looked around and realised they were alone in the room. “They were kind enough to give us some privacy for our negotiation,” he explained, still smiling widely. “I think the major issues have been resolved, don’t you?”

“No,” she replied. “I owe you an apology. I didn’t know what I wanted and I must have given you whiplash with all my indecision. I’m sorry. Toni told me to straighten up. Now, much as I appreciate the Topaz-Blossoms’ discretion I’d like a little more alone time to carry on our chat. Did you say your dad’s out at the cabin?” 

“He is. And likely to be tied up dealing with Andre for quite a while,” he said with a sly smile. “I like your thinking Doc.”

She followed his bike back to the suburban house that she noted with a start was on Elm Street. How did anyone get a moment’s sleep on Elm Street in a town like Riverdale?

His room was weirdly feminine, the wallpaper was pink and floral and the rug was blush coloured. She looked around in some confusion. “My dad moved in here when I was a senior in high school. It never bothered me enough to redecorate. I knew I’d be out of here as soon as possible anyway. Now, if you’re done criticising my taste in decor, what’s next?”

She gawped at him a little. She thought she’d been clear. She’d imagined the kiss would have told him what she wanted. His eyebrow was hitched as he looked at her. “Betty, it strikes me that you struggle to admit what exactly it is that you want. Which is why you were hightailing it back to Rhode Island until Toni got you to reconsider. So I think it’s only right and proper that I not try to help you with this. I'm not going to guess. You need to tell me what you want. I’ve made my pitch. I don’t do casual. It’s full speed ahead or dead stop with me. So why are we here and what do you want from me? And I should warn you, I’m not easy, you may have to seduce me a little if you want some romance.”

She swallowed hard. She couldn’t remember a time when she had ever articulated what she wanted from a relationship. She had no problem saying she wanted a promotion or a role on an academic committee but she wasn’t sure that she could speak out loud what she wanted in this floral bedroom from this beautiful man. And that was her problem, she realised. She was afraid of being overwhelmed, or of being subsumed, because she couldn’t say what she did and didn’t want. She would be dragged along because she was unable to ask to change course. She had never realised it before but that was why her relationships had never satisfied or fulfilled her, because she had never told her partner what she needed, not only sexually but not in other ways too. She sat on the bed with an “Oommf,” and looked up at him, amazed to be understood so completely. “I don’t say what I want and then I don’t get what I want. How did you know that when I didn’t know it?”

“I guess I’ve been watching you. That first night at the diner, you wanted pie but you waited for me to notice and suggest and coax you to have the thing you could have just ordered. So, order.”

“I… want us to be together.”

“We are together Doc. Here’s me and there’s you. Together.”

“No, I want us to…,” Words and phrases span through her head and she couldn’t say any of them. He was looking at her curiously. 

“Do we need to get the dolls back from Archie?” He suggested and she laughed and somehow the tension was broken.

“I want you, I want to learn everything about you. I want to go to bed with you, I want us to touch each other and then make love to each other and I want it to happen right the hell now,” she said breathlessly. His eyes were wide now, as if he hadn’t really expected her to be able to say it. 

Recovering, he leaned in and kissed her neck softly. When he spoke his voice was low and cracking with emotion. “Well done Betty. I want those things too. A lot. I’m sorry I was rough on you. I wanted you so much and it made me so sad that you could walk away.” 

“Toni told me about your mom. I’m so sorry.”

“Toni has a lot to say,” he grumbled as he had before.

She ran her hand under his sweater, encountering a t-shirt and huffing impatiently. “Take this off please,” she whispered. “I want to look at you.” He did as he was told, throwing the balled up sweater and tank top behind him onto the floor. She took her time looking. He was beautiful but, more than that, he was him. She was a little thrilled that he had done exactly as she had asked. She stepped forward and ran her fingertips over his chest and down to his belly, watching as he trembled a little at her touch. She unbuckled his belt and he moaned, deep in his chest and ran his hand through his hair, a little nervous. She felt powerful and she wanted that feeling to continue so she unbuttoned his jeans and put the flat of her hand against him. He was hard and it thrilled her to know that it was her that he was responding to. A whine came from him and she looked at him curiously. He pulled a little at her sweatshirt and looked at her imploringly so she took it off, and then, maintaining eye contact, she took off her t shirt and then she took off her bra.

He muttered, “Oh my God,” under his breath and stepped forward to touch her, stroking his long fingers down the side of one breast and then the other. She sat down at the end of the bed and pulled him towards her by his belt loop and made short work of pushing down his jeans. He hopped a little to rid himself of the troublesome denim and she pushed down his boxers which followed his pants onto the floor. He was looking at her in some surprise now, wondering if he was correctly anticipating her next move. As she lowered her head he put his finger under her chin and whispered, “What do **you** want Betty? We were talking about you taking what you want.”

“I want this. I want to wreck you, make you yell so the neighbours hear. I want you to fall apart and I want to be the reason it happened. Now shut up.” She was realising that she liked being in control, taking responsibility for his pleasure, making him a gift of it.

As she spoke he drew in an unsteady breath and then blew it out slowly, grounding himself. Then she was touching him, gently at first, becoming accustomed to him. He was breathing hard and beginning to whimper when she put her mouth on him and he whispered, “Oh Betts,” and she almost cried out because she was so happy to make him feel so much. She enjoyed his gasping and his trembling, she enjoyed the way he touched her hair, softly at first and then wrapping it around his fingers and holding her to her rhythm, most of all she enjoyed the words that fell from his wonderful lips. “Oh Betts, so good, beautiful Betts, oh please, oh fuck,” he moaned. She looked up at him, as she stroked him and moved her tongue over him. His eyes fixed on hers as she took him deeper as he came, throbbing and spasming. Then he was pushing her back onto the mattress to hover over her, kissing her neck and her breasts, murmuring that she was wonderful, a revelation. He fumbled at her remaining clothing and she helped him by shimmying out of her jeans. He grabbed her underwear and pulled it down almost roughly and she liked that so much that she thought she might not last until he touched her but then his beautiful fingers were on her, teasing her, advancing and withdrawing until she thought she might go mad. 

“Jug?” she whispered, pleading and he looked into her eyes, smiling softly.

“Show me, hold my hand and show me,” he murmured and, shocked at herself, she did. She grabbed his wrist and held him exactly where she wanted his fingers and then she moved his wrist in the circular motion she needed. He whispered, “That’s it, you see? You just need to ask for what you need, just ask.” Then his other hand was on her breast, stroking against her nipple with rough fingers and the two centres of pleasure were almost too much. She began to whine against his shoulder and he kissed her neck sucking her flesh against his teeth and she tumbled into emptiness, yelling and gasping. 

When she recovered herself enough to open her eyes he was propped on one elbow, watching her, amusement in his eyes behind the disordered waves of inky hair. “Ok? Not sorry?”

“Never. It was so good. Oh my god, the things I want to do to you.”

“You wait until I get my mouth on you. I have thoughts,” he smirked. He reached out and stroked the backs of his fingers over her breast and kissed her neck. As he did so somewhere in the corner of the room a phone buzzed. “Shit, is that you or me?” he asked.

“I think it’s you. You’d better get it. It might be news about Archie,” she said, resigned to always be interrupted by Archie.

He rummaged in his jeans for his phone and then said in surprise, “It’s Cheryl.” He pulled on his boxers as if it would be inappropriate to speak with the formidable Ms Blossom while naked and he headed down the stairs at a trot. “No, he’s not here,” she heard him saying before he was out of earshot. She pulled on her clothes and followed him to the kitchen. “No, get back in the car and go home Cheryl. I mean it. Right now.” She was amazed that anyone had the nerve to order Cheryl around.

When he ended up the call, he looked alarmed. “She says that when we left she went out to check on the cabin and make sure my dad and his guys weren’t tearing up her trees with their vehicles. She pulled up on a service road just off the track. She heard shots being fired. She called the Sheriff’s office and they said they couldn’t reach my dad. I’m going to head out there, see if he’s in trouble.” He rushed upstairs and dressed quickly but then, as he reached for his leather jacket and headed for the door, she ran around him and blocked his path. He stared at her for a moment and went to move her out of the way but she held his arm.

“Stop a second Jug. I know you’re worried but if your dad is in trouble it doesn’t help him if you’re in trouble too. You don’t have a gun. You’ll just be going out there to get yourself shot. Then who’s going to write the story? Just wait and think for a moment will you? Who do you think is out there?”

“Lodge I guess or one of Andre’s replacements, maybe several. We could call Veronica, see if she can reach her dad, find out where he is.”

“I’m on it. You call the station and see what they’re doing. I’ll call Charles. OK?”

They made their calls and then came back together in the kitchen to pool information. “Charles says the drugs out in the woods makes it look like organised crime, so the FBI can get involved. He’s contacting the local field office and he’s trying to get assigned from his office in New York to come take a look see. He’ll call when he’s on his way. Veronica says she spoke to her dad an hour ago. Someone had told him that Archie was in Greendale General. He was mad that she hadn’t told him, very mad indeed. She says she doesn’t imagine he would even take her calls right now but she’s going to try his staff, find out what they know.” Jughead looked concerned, “It’s ok, she has someone called Mad Dog with her. Apparently he worked at Archie’s community centre. She said they’d call, Bison was it? And someone called Reggie.”

Jughead nodded, “Moose. Not Bison. The local station has one deputy left. He’s calling in officers from Greendale and Seaside. Might be a while before they get here. Betty what if my dad is out there, shot, bleeding out in the woods? I have to go, I have to.”

“Fine, let’s think about how to get out there without being seen. It’ll be dark in less than an hour.”

An hour later they pulled off the service road half a mile from the cabin and Betty eased the car up into the undergrowth. They got out and covered it in bracken and branches and headed up the track. Waldo’s night vision camera was pretty helpful in negotiating their way through the trees while avoiding the track. He’d wanted to come with them but they managed to dissuade him by simply reaching out to hold hands and looking softly at each other. He’d handed over the gear and waved them off. As they approached the cabin they saw flashlight beams and heard men’s voices. Jug used the night sight to examine the area around the cabin grabbing Betty’s arm and indicating the direction she should look. Through the viewfinder she could see Sheriff Jones tied up alongside a deputy who looked in bad shape. There was a dark stain, probably blood on the deputy’s sleeve but Jughead’s dad looked uninjured. They could see the cruiser through the trees with another two vehicles parked behind it, blocking it in. By the cabin door a dark haired, barrel chested man stood, smoking a cigar. Jug whispered, “That’s Hiram Lodge.”

As they watched Lodge began to yell at the two other guys who seemed to be his flunkies. Betty and Jughead crept a little closer to try to hear his words. “..has to be here. Sheriff Jones couldn’t find his trasero with both hands and the package isn’t in the cruiser so it must be here. Come on you fools. I’m not planning to spend all night out here. I have to pay a visit to a sick friend in hospital.” The guys were making half hearted attempts to search the undergrowth by torchlight but had clearly run out of ideas of where to look. 

“They’re looking for the drugs Jug. What happened to them?”

“I dropped the other deputy off at the Sheriff’s office with them before I went to Cheryl’s. He’s too late.”

“Why hasn’t your dad told them that?”

“Because when Lodge knows they’re gone he’s got no reason to keep my dad and the other cop alive and because he knows that sooner or later someone is going to head out here to find him. He’s figuring this is the best place to take down Lodge. It’s actually not the dumbest thing he’s ever done. Although, to be fair, he has done some pretty dumb shit. Have you sent your message?” 

Betty nodded and showed him the screen. The message read “ETA 8 minutes.”

“Ok, shall we get the thin blue line out of there before the shit hits the fan?” 

They waited until Hiram disappeared inside the cabin and then crept from the trees to where FP and the deputy were bound. FP’s eyes opened wide when he saw his son and he looked around frantically, expecting the goons to appear and attack. Jughead produced his folding knife and cut the cable ties around their wrists and ankles and supported the wounded deputy as they struggled to the trees. They had gone only a few yards when a yell behind them told them that Hiram’s men had discovered their escape. They began a noisy pursuit, calling out to each other and breaking branches as they went. Jughead hissed at his dad that the cruiser was no use, they had to get back to Betty’s car and between them they half carried the wounded man while Betty tried to watch out for their pursuers. 

They were half way to the vehicle when something huge and lumbering thundered through the trees to the south of them. The smell of it was horrifying. It smelled of death and ancient fear and agony. “Christ, it’s a bear,” yelled Jughead, reaching out to Betty and holding her tightly. The crashing was followed by a blood curdling scream as one of Hiram’s hoods encountered the beast. The sounds that followed were indescribable. Betty thought that she would never be able to forget the choked off scream followed by the terrible tearing and cracking sounds that echoed from the trees. The other goon must have thought better of trying to follow them through the trees and seemed to turn tail to try to get back to the cabin, there were two gunshots in rapid succession but they were distant enough that the rescue party could continue their journey back to the car, hoping that the fallen man would occupy the predator for long enough for them to make their escape. They were safely locked in the car when a Humvee powered up the track towards the cabin and a helicopter’s rotorblades whirred overhead. “Your brother’s here with the cavalry,” Jughead observed and grinned at Betty. She started the car and headed back down the road to Riverdale General to get the Deputy to the ER.

By the time Charles rang Betty to get her up to speed they had already deposited the wounded man at the hospital, FP staying with him until his wife arrived, waiting to explain what had happened to her husband. They had headed back to FP’s house, collapsing on the couch as soon as they locked the door behind them. Charles told them that Hiram and his remaining goon had begged to be taken into custody. They hadn’t resisted arrest, glad to have safe passage out of the woods. “Did you find the guy the bear attacked?” Betty asked.

“Yeah, not something I want to ever see again I’m afraid. Did you see the animal? Was it definitely a bear?” he asked.

“Well, I saw something. I guessed it was a bear by the whole eating a guy thing.” 

“Yeah, it’s weird though. The other man swore it wasn’t a bear. He said it was Bigfoot. Don’t know what he’s hoping to gain with that. He’s not going to be on the late night shows from jail.”

Betty agreed that it was a weird lie to make up before arranging for her and Jughead to stop by the field office the next day to make their statements. As she ended the call Jughead stroked her cheek and kissed her. “I think we're both too bushed to fool around. Wanna watch some tv?” he whispered and she snuggled against him as he pressed play on an old episode of the X Files. She half woke hours later as a smiling FP gently placed a blanket over them and switched off the tv, taking a moment to stroke his boy’s hair back and kiss his head gently. She closed her eyes and slept again in Jughead’s arms, her head against his chest. 

At Pop’s a week later, two days before Betty had to be at her desk at Brown, a grand farewell burger dinner was in progress. Betty and Jughead were taking off that evening, heading to her place in Providence so he could finish writing up his story while she got back to the chalkface. He’d have to return to New York at some point but he said it was a fun commute on the bike and when he was busy with work in the city she could hop on the Acela after work on a Friday and be in his bed by nine thirty. She honestly couldn’t remember why she had ever thought it would be a problem.

As the cherry phosphates and milkshakes flowed, Veronica enlisted Betty as one of her twelve bridesmaids, the wedding to be held just as soon as Archie could be prevailed upon to use silverware and wear shoes. “We’ll get there Betty, I’d almost despaired of pants but look! Fully dressed, aren’t you darling?” Archie grinned and nodded. Betty asked how she was doing and her new friend admitted it was hard, but so much better than the horrible limbo she’d been in before he was found. And things were getting better gradually. He was speaking more now, his language returning slowly. The doctors thought the aphasia was associated with psychological trauma, there seemed no physiological reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery. Betty had supplied a list of therapists who specialised in PTSD and functional language disorders. He still seemed to have no recollection of anything from the bear attack to seeing Jughead in the forest or, if he did remember, he couldn't talk about it yet. 

Charles was finishing up his investigation of Hiram’s business dealings while visiting with his sister and her new beau. He had established that Lodge had planned to take over Cheryl’s business. As well as generating a healthy profit when the Sasquatch sightings were debunked, it would also have given him a legitimate business to launder drug money. A supply route to the Canadian mob running directly through the forests of Riverdale would also have been secured if he owned the land. His plan had come to nothing and he was staring down a thirty year stretch for conspiracy to murder, the drugs offences and assorted financial crimes unless he was prepared to name names. Veronica said he had to choose between a life sentence from the government and a death sentence from the mob.

Cheryl had managed to retain control of her company once it had been conclusively proven that Waldo’s photograph showed a bear skinned Archie Andrews not a Sasquatch but the monster hunter wasn’t discouraged. He was back out in the woods, waiting to see whatever the FBI had scared away when they brought a chopper and an armoured vehicle in to arrest Veronica’s father. Monster hunters were still thronging the town, a conspiracy theory developing that the Feds had been in town to conduct secret research on the monster rather than to take down a drugs ring. there was already a Sasquatch autopsy video showing up on the tinfoil hat websites. It was all good news for a gothic styled B&B so Toni was delighted to spread that rumour far and wide. 

In a lull in the conversation Betty said, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.” 

“What’s that Doc?” Jughead asked.

“Well we’re thinking that Andre was killed by the bear, right?,” There were murmurs of assent. "So who killed the bear?”

Several confused faces looked at her. “When we found Archie, he was wearing the bear skin. Now Archie, you are an amazing survivor but I don’t see how you killed and skinned a bear on your own, with no tools, while suffering a pneumothorax and a fractured skull. So who killed the bear?” There was a slightly uncomfortable silence until Archie said “Sasquatch,” and everyone laughed a little too hard, as though it were a joke. He caught Betty’s eye as everyone laughed and he nodded though. Betty decided the issue could be tabled for later reexamination.

They ate Pop’s legendary burgers and laughed and yelled across each other. Betty sat in the booth with Jughead’s arm protectively around her shoulder, perfectly happy and contented. Eventually it was time for the fun to end and the crowd began to drift away with promises to meet again soon. 

As they got into her car Jughead leaned over and whispered against her neck, “Now, are you going to sweep me off to Rhode Island and keep me in bonded servitude as your sex slave, requiring all manner of depravity from my innocent flesh, or what?”

“Only if you ask very nicely. Come on.”

“Just one thing,” he said and she looked over at him, waiting for him to tell her.

“There’s a guy in Massachusetts says he saw a sea monster in the Quabbin Reservoir. It’s only like a thirty minute diversion.”

Betty bit her lip, tempted. “What sort of sea monster?”


End file.
